For aspiring homeowners, coming up with a healthy down payment has long been the biggest obstacle to owning a home.
With property values soaring in many areas — median prices in San Jose, Calif., and Denver are 60 percent above their prerecession peaks — the barrier is rising. That has some firms promoting unconventional ways to scrape together a down payment, including crowdfunding and using Airbnb rental income.
Now, a small but growing number of home buyers are trying something different: asking an outside investor to put down money alongside them.
It is called shared equity, and Unison, a company based in San Francisco, is the largest of a handful of firms putting it to work. Unison will provide at least half of a consumer’s down payment in exchange for a piece of any appreciation in the home’s value when it is sold. If the home sells at a loss, the company absorbs a share of that, too.
